Over $21 Million Dollars for “Wrongful Birth” – Elizabeth O’Brien

TAMPA, Florida, July 24, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A judge has awarded over $21 million dollars to a couple for the “wrongful birth” of their second handicapped son. The couple would have aborted the child if they had known about his disability, the Tampa Bay Tribune reports…

The couple claimed that if they had had a proper diagnosis after the birth of their first child in 2002, they could have determined by a pregnancy test that the second son Caleb had the same disorder. According to the lawsuit, if the couple had known this, they would have aborted him, the Associated Press reports.

Commenting on the situation, president and spokesperson for Florida Right to Life Lynda Bell told LifeSiteNews.com, “How bizarre that in our nation, not only have we become a throw-away generation, including our babies that are not perfect, but that now we’re holding doctors responsible to deliver a perfect baby. I think this is absurd, and I think this court is opening up a Pandora’s box to all types of litigations that say, ‘it’s not just a matter of nature, now I can hold a doctor accountable for an imperfect child.'”

Bell stated, “Doctor’s may feel that they have a responsibility to lead people to abortion just so there’s not a lawsuit.” She continued, “I’m not going to weigh in on whether or not the doctor was negligent without knowing all the facts of the case, but I think there’s a very fine line between a negligent physician and having him being responsible for an unborn child, whether or not it is perfect.” She also said that the doctor might have been sued legitimately for negligence, but not for “wrongful birth”. “Doctors are not God,” she said, “they’re physicians.”…